Obesity remains a serious health problem and it is no secret that many people want to lose weight. Behavioral economists typically argue that “nudges” help individuals with various decisionmaking flaws to live longer, healthier, and better lives. In an article in the new issue of Regulation, Michael L. Marlow discusses how nudging by government differs from nudging by markets, and explains why market nudging is the more promising avenue for helping citizens to lose weight.

Two long wars, chronic deficits, the financial crisis, the costly drug war, the growth of executive power under Presidents Bush and Obama, and the revelations about NSA abuses, have given rise to a growing libertarian movement in our country – with a greater focus on individual liberty and less government power. David Boaz’s newly released The Libertarian Mind is a comprehensive guide to the history, philosophy, and growth of the libertarian movement, with incisive analyses of today’s most pressing issues and policies.

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We should all be so lucky as to have our crises be like the looming interest rate change on some student loans. Yes, the rate on subsidized federal loans will double on July 1 absent congressional action, but that needs to be put into context to see that it’s a potential “crisis” – as I heard it described on a radio news report last Friday – akin to your yacht sinking. Your toy, bathtub yacht.

Starting July 1, rates on subsidized loans – a subset of federal loans in which taxpayers eat beginning interest payments as well as bearing non-repayment risk – are set to rise from 3.4 percent to 6.8 percent.

That might sound bad, but note that the rates have only been at 3.4 percent for a year. A 2007 law set them on a gradual decline from 6.8 percent to 3.4 percent over five years. So it’s not like 3.4 percent has been the norm for decades…or even two years.

Next, the rate increase will only affect loans originated after July 1. People with existing loans won’t suddenly see the rates on all their subsidized loans double.

Third, while a rate doubling sounds big, the practical effect according to the White House’s own calculations will be to add about $1,000 to an average loan over its lifetime, which is about ten years. That translates into an additional $8.33 per month – less than the cost of a DC movie ticket.

Finally, freezing the rate for another year will do almost nothing for currently suffering middle-class families, unlike what the White House intimated in President Obama’s most recent weekly address. The large majority of loans originated after July 1 won’t even begin to be repaid for at least another year-and-a-half, after rising seniors have graduated and gone through the six-month repayment grace period.

All those consequences are problems that Washington really should worry about. But that’s the other thing about a crisis: It’s usually only embraced when it means giving stuff away to buy lots of votes.

The lead story in today’s Washington Post accuses Mitt Romney, while at Bain Capital, of investing in firms “that specialized in relocating” American jobs overseas. This gave cause to Obama political adviser David Axelrod to accuse Romney of “breathtaking hypocrisy,” which prompted Roger Pilon to spell out some differences between economics and “Solyndranomics” for the administration. Roger’s correct. But Romney—for running away from that record and playing to that same politically fertile economic ignorance that tempts devastating economic policies—is also worthy of his scorn. Romney should have written Roger’s words.

President Obama set the tone earlier this year during his SOTU address by demonizing companies that get tax breaks for shipping jobs overseas. By “tax breaks,” the president means merely that their un-patriated profits aren’t subject to double taxation. “Shipping jobs overseas” is a metaphor you’ll hear more frequently in the coming months, and Romney is more likely to deny any association with it than to defend it. That’s just the way he rolls.

Outsourcing has been portrayed as a betrayal of American workers by companies that only care about the bottom-line. Well, yes, caring about the bottom line is what companies are supposed to do. Corporate officers have a fiduciary duty to their shareholders to maximize profits. It is not the responsibility of corporations to tend to the national employment situation. It is, however, the responsibility of Congress and the administration to have policies in place that encourage investing and hiring or that at least don’t discourage investing and hiring. But for the specific financial inducements that politicians offer firms to invest and hire in particular chosen industries—Solyndranomics—this administration (and the 110th-112th Congresses) has produced too many reasons to forgo domestic investment. Let’s not blame companies for following the incentives and disincentives created by policy.

There’s also the economics. Contrary to the assertions of some anti-trade, anti-globalization interests, countries with low wages or lax labor and environmental standards rarely draw U.S. investment. Total production costs—from product conception to consumption—are what matter and locations with low wages or lax standards tend to be less productive and thus less appealing places to produce.

The vast majority of U.S. direct investment abroad (what the president calls “shipping jobs overseas”) goes to other rich countries (European countries and Canada), where the rule of law is clear and abided, and where there is a market to serve. The primary reason for U.S. corporations establishing foreign affiliates is to serve demand in those markets—not as a platform for exporting back to the United States. In fact, according to this study by Matt Slaughter, over 93 percent of the sales of U.S. foreign affiliates are made in the host or other foreign countries. Only about 7 percent of the sales are to U.S. customers.

Furthermore, the companies that are investing abroad tend to be the same ones that are doing well and investing and hiring at home. Their operations abroad complement rather than supplant their U.S. operations.

During his unsuccessful 2004 presidential campaign, candidate John Kerry denigrated “Benedict Arnold companies” that outsourced production and service functions to places like India. Earlier this month, Senator Kerry introduced a bill in the Senate that effectively acknowledges that anti-investment, anti-business policies may be responsible for deterring foreign investment in the United States and for chasing some U.S. companies away. Maybe he should talk to the president—and Romney.

After the Greek elections, which saw the defeat of the pro-big government Syriza coalition and a victory for the supposedly conservative New Democracy Party, here’s some of what Politico reported.

President Barack Obama on Monday called the results of Greece’s election a “positive prospect” with the potential to form a government willing to cooperate with Europe. “I think the election in Greece yesterday indicates a positive prospect for not only them forming a government, but also them working constructively with their international partners in order that they can continue on the path of reform and do so in a way that also offers the prospects for the Greek people to succeed and prosper,” Obama said after a meeting with the G-20 Summit’s host, Mexican President Felipe Calderon.

In other words, it’s “positive” when other nations reject big government and vote for right-of-center parties, but Heaven forbid that this advice apply to the United States.

Interestingly, it’s not just Obama who is rejecting (when talking about other nations) the welfare-state vision of bigger government and higher taxes.

… it is far from clear, especially after the French election, that there is any kind of majority or even plurality support for responsible policies.

Remarkable. Larry Summers is dissing French president Francois Hollande and the French people by implying they want irresponsible policies, even though the Hollande’s views about Keynesian economics and soak-the-rich taxation are basically identical to the nonsense Summers was peddling while in the White House.

It’s almost enough to make you cynical about America’s political elite. Perish the thought!

Jonathan H. Adler is the Johan Verheij Memorial Professor of Law and director of the Center for Business Law and Regulation at Case Western Reserve University. In this new Cato Institute video, Adler explains how a recently finalized IRS rule implementing ObamaCare taxes employers without any statutory authority.

Two senior Obama administration officials told the Associated Press that the administration will enforce many of the major portions of the Dream Act using the president’s administrative discretion to defer deportation actions. According to a memo released by the Department of Homeland Security this morning, the plan would apply to unauthorized immigrants who:

Came to the United States under the age of 16.

Have continuously resided in the United States for a least five years preceding the date of the memorandum and are present in the United States on the date of the memorandum.

Are currently in school, have graduated from high school, have obtained a general education development certificate, or are an honorably discharged veteran of the Coast Guard or Armed Forces of the United States.

Have not been convicted of a felony offense, a significant misdemeanor offense, multiple misdemeanor offenses, or otherwise poses a threat to national security or public safety.

Are not above the age of 30.

If the above plan is implemented fully, between 800,000 and 2.1 million unauthorized immigrants could be legalized for up to two years. By being legalized they will become more productive, earn higher wages, and more fully assimilate into American society. But this is only a temporary fix.

Temporary work permits can be issued to unauthorized immigrants who have their deportations deferred but in this situation they would only last 2 years. It’s a routine administrative procedure that already occurs for unauthorized immigrants who have their deportations deferred. This is one situation where the complexity of our immigration rules and regulations works to the advantage of immigrants and Americans.

A permanent version of this action in the form of the admittedly imperfect Dream Act would need to be passed to reap the full rewards.

The benefits from passing the Dream Act are enormous. Evidence from the 1986 amnesty showed that the legalized immigrants experienced a 15.1 percent increase in their earnings by 1992, with roughly 6 to 13 percentage points due to the legalization.

In the Winter 2012 issue of The Cato Journal, Raul Hinojosa-Ojeda estimated that an amnesty similar to 1986 would yield at least an added $1.5 trillion to GDP over a single decade. If 2.1 million eligible unauthorized immigrants were permanently legalized, that would be at least $250 billion in additional production over the next decade (back of the envelope calculation).

However, before we get too thrilled about the prospects of this sorely needed temporary liberalization, we should remember that hardly anything changed the last time the Obama administration used its prosecutorial discretion to review deportation cases. His administration promised to wade through backlogged cases and close those where the unauthorized immigrants had strong American family ties and no criminal records. Since that policy went into effect in November 2011, DHS officials have reviewed more than 411,000 cases and less than 2 percent of them were closed.

If the administration’s proposal temporarily goes as far as the Dream Act would, it will shrink the informal economy, increase economic efficiency, and remove the fear and uncertainty of deportation from potentially millions of otherwise law-abiding people. It would be a good first step toward reforming immigration and a glimpse at what the Dream Act would do.

Today, National Review Online publishes our op-ed based on that study. An excerpt:

[U]nder the statute as written, if Congress fails to repeal IPAB in 2017, the secretary must implement IPAB’s edicts even if Congress votes to block them. Nancy Pelosi was right: We needed to pass ObamaCare to find out what was in it. We’re still finding out.

ObamaCare is so unconstitutional, it’s absurd. It delegates legislative powers that Congress cannot delegate. It creates a permanent super-legislature to supplement—and when conflicts arise, to supplant—Congress. It tries to amend the Constitution via statute rather than the amendment procedure of Article V.

ObamaCare proves economist Friedrich Hayek’s axiom that government direction of the economy threatens both democracy and freedom. After decades of failing to deliver high-quality, low-cost health care through Medicare, Congress struck upon the “solution” of creating a permanent super-legislature—or worse, an economic dictator—with the power to impose taxes and other laws that the people would reject.

Fortunately, one Congress cannot bind future Congresses by statute. If the Supreme Court fails to strike down ObamaCare, Congress should exercise its power to repeal IPAB—and the rest of ObamaCare with it.

Cohen is also the lead attorney for the plaintiffs in Coons v. Geithner, which challenges the constitutionality of IPAB and which a federal court has put on hold pending the Supreme Court’s ruling in the individual-mandate and Medicaid-mandate cases.

When the unelected government officials on this board submit a legislative proposal to Congress, it automatically becomes law: PPACA requires the Secretary of Health and Human Services to implement it. Blocking an IPAB “proposal” requires at a minimum that the House and the Senate and the president agree on a substitute. The Board’s edicts therefore can become law without congressional action, congressional approval, meaningful congressional oversight, or being subject to a presidential veto. Citizens will have no power to challenge IPAB’s edicts in court.

Worse, PPACA forbids Congress from repealing IPAB outside of a seven-month window in the year 2017, and even then requires a three-fifths majority in both chambers…

IPAB’s unelected members will have effectively unfettered power to impose taxes and ration care for all Americans, whether the government pays their medical bills or not. In some circumstances, just one political party or even one individual would have full command of IPAB’s lawmaking powers. IPAB truly is independent, but in the worst sense of the word. It wields power independent of Congress, independent of the president, independent of the judiciary, and independent of the will of the people.

The creation of IPAB is an admission that the federal government’s efforts to plan America’s health care sector have failed. It is proof of the axiom that government control of the economy threatens democracy.

Importantly, this study reveals a heretofore unreported feature that makes this super-legislature even more authoritarian and unconstitutional:

The Congressional Research Service and others have reported that even if Congress fails to repeal this super-legislature in 2017, Congress will still be able to use the weak tools that ObamaCare allows for restraining IPAB. Unfortunately, that interpretation rests on a misreading of a crucial part of the law. These experts thought they saw the word “or” where the statute actually says “and.”

How much difference can one little conjunction make?

Under the statute as written, if Congress fails to repeal IPAB in 2017, then as of 2020 Congress will have absolutely zero ability to block or amend the laws that IPAB writes, and zero power to affect the Secretary’s implementation of those laws. IPAB will become a permanent super-legislature, with the Secretary as its executive. And if the president fails to appoint any IPAB members, the Secretary will unilaterally wield all of IPAB’s legislative and executive powers, including the power to appropriate funds for her own department. It’s completely nutty, yet completely consistent with the desire of ObamaCare’s authors to protect IPAB from congressional interference.

It’s also completely consistent with Friedrich Hayek’s prediction that government planning of the economy paves the way for authoritarianism.